The Central Ticket Office announced Tuesday it will be entering
into a partnership with Ticketmaster to provide ticketing services
for students.
CTO Director Dave Lowenstein said he had spent 15 months in due
diligence, studying all the alternatives and finally settling with
Ticketmaster, citing other schools as having used the service
successfully.
“We feel that Ticketmaster has a great deal to offer our
campus community,” he said.
He added that the current service will not change for the most
part but that new services could be available as early as fall
2005.
CTO will still provide tickets to athletic events, UCLA Live!
performances, and other performing arts events at UCLA, as well as
discounted tickets to theme parks, movie theaters and local bus
services.
Prices will remain the same for all events, and tickets can be
purchased at CTO’s current location on campus, by phone or
online.
But as an added benefit, students will also be able to purchase
tickets through any of Ticketmaster’s retail ticket centers,
over the phone or online.
While CTO’s Web site will still be located at
www.tickets.ucla.edu, it will be redesigned to provide for easier
navigation and convenience.
Students will be able to purchase tickets online and print them
at home.
The new site will also accommodate for individual account pages
on which ticket-holders can view their previous purchases, pay
invoices and transfer tickets between students.
“The whole premise is increased customer
convenience,” Lowenstein said. “The new system provides
better customer convenience and ease of use.”
Another new sight will be the presence of ticket scanners at
event gates. Lowenstein said this will save money by giving the job
of ticket counter to computers, instead of having it done
manually.
He assured that the current CTO staff would be retained, though
they will have to go through training to learn the new system.
The system will not be fully implemented for about a year, the
new Web site will be up and ready by the fall, Lowenstein said.
Ticketmaster, serving more than 9,000 clients around the world,
according to the press release, seems enthusiastic about the
partnership.
“Ticketmaster’s integrated sales and marketing
distribution programs will offer added value to the
university’s overall customer service and ticket sales
strategy,” said Dennis Scanlon, Vice President of Integrated
Products Marketing at Ticketmaster, in the press release.